6 The preliminary character of Brecht’s theatreNo fixed playtext, no ‘work’‘Work’ as commodity & bourgeois fetishFrom 1928 all work published under title ‘Versuche’Collective production vs. ‘great author’ image of bourgeoisiePlays not supposed to be ‘heritage’ or ‘tradition’ (or even ‘Culture’)Tension between radical preliminarity & critique of bourgeois concept of ‘Art’ and own desire for permanence‘Ich beobachte, dass ich anfange, ein Klassiker zu werden’ (Brecht, 1922!!)

7 Key aims of Die heilige Johanna der SchlachthöfeTo expose the contradictions of the capitalist economic systemTo show that culture under capitalism encourages acquiescence or resignation, acceptance of the absurd economic systemTo question the relationship between property and bourgeois morality

8 The commodity Use value vs. exchange valueUse value – concrete, exchange value – abstract (not only because it is money but because it is abstracted from use value)Exchange value depends on labour costs, time and demandIn money economy, exchange value is realised in money (= abstraction)A commodity is something produced for its exchange value, not for its use value.Capitalism: through circulation of commodities: abstraction in all social relations‘All that is solid melts into air’ (Marx)

9 ‘A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of men's labour appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labour; because the relations of the producers to the sum total of their own labour is presented to them as a social relation, existing not between themselves, but between the products of their labour.’Marx, Capital.

10 Conflicts of interest in Die heilige Johanna der SchlachthöfeThe Viehzüchter (farmers/stockbreeders) who produce the raw materialThe Arbeiter, the workers, the people who slave away in appalling conditions in the abattoirs.The Packherren (the meat packers)The Aufkäufer (the wholesalers, who decide which retailers to supply)The Makler (the brokers who negotiate financial deals between the wholesalers and the retailers)The Spekulanten (the speculators who make money by trying to anticipate rises and falls in the prices of shares in the meat trade on the stock exchange)and the Schwarze Strohhüte (the Salvation Army), who are on a religious crusade against consumerism and materialism

11 Brecht’s main influences for Die heilige Johanna der SchlachthöfeFriedrich Schiller's play about Jeanne D’Arc, Die Jungfrau von Orleans (1800)George Bernard Shaw’s play about the Salvation Army, Major Barbara (1905)Brecht’s friend Elisabeth Hauptmann's play about the Salvation Army called Happy End (which itself was influenced by GBS)Brecht's earlier, abandoned attempt to present the capitalist economy on stage: Weizen or Joe Fleischhacker from Chicago.Upton Sinclair's novel about the Chicago Meatpackers The Jungle (1906)

12 Cycle of Capitalist Economy inDie heilige Johanna der Schlachthöfe1. Starting point: the market is saturated with commodities (meat) that no one wants. The end of prosperity. ‘Surplus value’, i.e. profits, are increasingly difficult to achieve Investment comes to a halt To increase production rationalisation of the production process replaces investment in humans workers lose their jobsScene 1Sc. 22.  More unemployed means a drop in demand for goods and a crisis of overproduction.Sc. 3

20 Die heilige Johanna der Schlachthöfe is also an attack on Schiller's aesthetic theory (from Aristotle’s’ Poetics), which posits that man should aim to:Transcend the baseness of everyday realityEngage with high and noble idealsStrive for moral and aesthetic education through art and culture (‘Bildung’)

22 What was the 18th century bourgeois notion of the individual?The bourgeois individual in 18th century Germany sought autonomy and freedom from feudal and religious dominationBut felt constrained by an alienating society increasingly operating by principles of instrumental reasonAn individual seeking freedom seeks it for its own sake (Goethe, Schiller, and Immanuel Kant).According to Immanuel Kant, and Schiller, art is the sphere of human endeavour that can reconcile individual desires and demands of society, contradiction between individual and communityKant’s definition of beauty was “interesseloses Wohlgefallen” (disinterested pleasure). Aesthetic pleasure is not cognitive, more a spontaneous form of subjective inter-action

23 Materialist critique of bourgeois idea of individualThe bourgeois notion of the individual is a dialectic, i.e.:It’s both a protest against a society run by concepts of instrumental reasonAnd also an ideology that claims to transcend these conditions but without actually changing them.

24 Ideology is unacknowledged politicsMauler as critique of bourgeois individual idealReferences to his ‘ideals’ vs his business interestsMauler’s ‘Faustian’ soul – torn between lofty ideals and businessMauler’s view of the workers as ‘base’

25 ‘Und es sind zwei Sprachen oben und unten’Language and Class – How does Brecht mark Joanna’s insight into the difference between ‘oben’ und unten’ in the play’s use of language?

26 German idealism’s main precepts: Ideas determine reality Idealism as Ideology: Marx's concept of bourgeois ideology, as formulated in The German Ideology (1845): a critique of the philosophy of German idealism (represented amongst others by Kant & Hegel)German idealism’s main precepts:Ideas determine realityConsciousness determines beingBehaviour determined by ideas and values.Universal values (e.g. justice, truth and honour) are valid for all societies and all times in historyCulture exists independently of social and economic factors.Religion the best vehicle for universal values.

27 Marx’s critique in The German IdeologySocio-economic reality determines consciousnessIdeas and values are a product and reflection of social reality.Ideology provides moral justification for economic status quo.Marx's materialism turns Hegel’s idealism upside down and puts it back on its feet